In Operation Hollywood, filmmaker Emilio Pacull follows up an investigative study by film industry journalist Dave Robb on the help producers have sought from the military over the years.

Robb, who worked for Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, says he found himself obsessed with the minutiae of these negotiations with the boys with ships, tanks, materiel, information, bases, access to land, troops and some very real-looking fireworks.

His report, a page-by-page study of scripts submitted by the studios to the Pentagon, reveals an intriguing pattern of censorship and propaganda. For Hollywood, acceptance of this system means the difference between "full co-operation" and no co-operation.

For the military, it involves maintaining an idealised image of the forces, their behaviour, their view of the world, the superiority of their form of patriotism, and for that matter, their reasons for going to war.   more »

Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, is struggling to steer the Republican Party to victory this fall at a time when he appears to have the least political authority since he came to Washington, party officials said.

Mr. Rove remains a dominant adviser to President Bush, administration officials say. But outside the White House, as Mr. Bush’s popularity has waned, and as questions have arisen among Republicans about the White House’s political acumen, the party’s candidates are going their own way in this difficult election season far more than they have in any other campaign Mr. Rove has overseen.

Some are disregarding Mr. Rove’s advice, despite his reputation as the nation’s premier strategist. They are criticizing Mr. Bush or his policies. They are avoiding public events with the president and Mr. Rove.

Influential conservative commentators have openly broken with the White House, calling into question the continued enthusiasm of evangelicals, economic conservatives and other groups that Mr. Rove has counted on to win elections.   more »

Labor Day was created by the machinists union in New York in 1882 as a "workingmen's holiday." Unions all over America adopted the idea.

By 1894, Congress passed legislation making Labor Day an official holiday. The day also celebrated the act of organizing, politically and in the workplace, to improve livelihoods and lives.

Today, the politics have largely been leached out of it. Labor Day is a long weekend that marks summer's end.

And that extra day of rest is needed more than ever. Government statistics show that the typical family works about 500 more hours a year than families did 30 years ago, because it takes two incomes to make it. Even so, family incomes are failing to keep pace with the cost of living.   more »

Some years from now, in an economic refugee relocation “Enterprise Zone,” your kids will ask you, “What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?”

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they’re under attack. That’s how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

This week, Dupont, the chemical giant, slashed employee pension benefits by two-thirds. Furthermore, new Dupont workers won’t get a guaranteed pension at all — and no health care after retirement. It’s part of Dupont’s new “Die Young” program, I hear.

Dupont is not in financial straits. Rather, the slash attack on its workers’ pensions was aimed at adding a crucial three cents a share to company earnings, from $3.11 per share to $3.14.

So Happy Labor Day.   more »

"On a physical level the warning lights on his dashboard are flashing," says Oliver James, the psychologist. "Everything is running on empty but he just can't see it. It's not surprising that he's got bags under his eyes and looks tense and uneasy; he needs rest."

Even his voice is beginning to let him down, says the respected expert. "It's very subtle but there is a definite sense of his delivery having less buoyancy to it. His very emphatic assertions are ringing less true."

Sir Cliff Richard said last week that he started lending the Blairs his villa in Barbados because the Prime Minister looked "dwindled and haggard".

And this break is likely to have been considerably less relaxing than previous vacations. The Prime Minister himself admitted that a constant stream of telephone calls about the Lebanon crisis interrupted the start of his Caribbean holiday.   more »

3 SEPTEMBER

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